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The group had been working with the Palin operation to raise money for SarahPAC but decided to step aside after a series of strategic and philosophic differences, according to a source familiar with the decision.

Campaign Solutions head Becki Donatelli had long been associated with the fundraising efforts of Arizona Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) and got to know Palin during last year's presidential campaign.

When Palin decided to set up a PAC earlier this year as a first step toward solidifying her role on the national stage and potentially positioning herself for a 2012 presidential run, Donatelli's firm was the obvious choice to help raise money for the fledgling effort.

"When the Governor gave Kristan Cole permission to launch a legal expense fund, she had one request: keep it in Alaska. Campaign Solutions is not based in Alaska," said SarahPAC spokesperson Meghan Stapleton. We appreciate Donatelli's good work for us, but as we have been saying all along, the Governor is focused on Alaska and Alaskans."

Pam Pryor, the DC-based spokeswoman for SarahPAC, will stay on in her current role.

SarahPAC formally incorporated in late January but is not required to file a report detailing its contributions and expenditures until the end of June.

The news of the latest problem in Palin's political world comes on the same day that the Alaska governor announced the formation of the Alaska Fund Trust, an official legal fund designed to "defend the integrity of the Alaska Governor's Office from an onslaught of political attacks launched against current Governor Sarah Palin, the First Family, and state-employed colleagues," according to a mission statement on the organization's Web site.

It also comes less than 24 hours after Levi Johnston, the former fiancee of her daughter, Bristol, appeared on CNN's "Larry King Live" to discuss his relationship with the Palins.

"The Alaska Fund Trust is the official legal fund created to defend the integrity of the Alaska Governor's Office from an onslaught of political attacks launched against current Governor Sarah Palin, the First Family, and state-employed colleagues. These baseless accusations have cost Alaska more than $1 million in public monies to defend, and Governor Palin has incurred more than half a million dollars in personal debt defending her official actions as Governor."

I believe these are dishonest statements.

Her effort is clearly not to defend the "office"; it is to defend the "individual" who currently happens to hold the office and her family. I also question whether it actually includes "state-employed colleagues" other than her minions and buddies.

If Mrs. Palin is such "a champion for much needed transparency and accountability in government" perhaps she could start by demonstrating her transparency by telling the truth about The Alaska Fund Trust--that it is her effort to manipulate members of the public to pay her personal legal fees which she could have avoided if she had not used her position as Governor to try to fire her ex-brother-in-law, permitted her non-state-employee husband to do some of her dirty work, and other questionable actions she has taken during her term in office. That would be transparency.

Palin and her staff are incapable of communicating coherently or consistently. This quote from Stapleton is a case in point, " 'When the Governor gave Kristan Cole permission to launch a legal expense fund, she had one request: keep it in Alaska. Campaign Solutions is not based in Alaska,' said SarahPAC spokesperson Meghan Stapleton. We appreciate Donatelli's good work for us, but as we have been saying all along, the Governor is focused on Alaska and Alaskans."

SarahPAC is the 2012 effort Campaign Solutions was working on. The new legal defense fund to ward off costs association with the DOZEN ethics violations Palin has faced is another. What does one have to do with the other?

Palin is floundering in AK, especially recently when she the state during the last week of the legislative session to speak at an anti-abortion dinner in Indiana, leaving a trail of mis-steps in her wake:
* Finalization of the state's budget and uses of the stimulus monies went unresolved.
* Failure to support her own anti-abortion bill
* Rejection of her nominess for Attorney-General
* Rejection of her nominee for Fisheries Board
* Capitulation on a Democratic nominee for state senate, after a month of wrangling.

Nice record for the 2009 AK legislative session, Sarah. A good foundation for "pushing open that door" that God wants you to "barge" through.

I never understood the Palin allure.. well beyond the convention a couple of weeks.. I, at first blamed Couric for exposing Palin's (what's a nice way to say this) 'no point of reference'.. but in retrospect I would think that the Presidential candidate might benefit from a greater awareness of extra-Alaksan issues.

"Levi Johnston on the Larry King show. I'm sure this jobless teenager father, had lots of insight to offer."

Levi did just fine getting himself to school for 11 years, preparing for his senior graduation before Palin dragged him into her insanity and personal agenda, robbing him of an education. Levi, had a great opportunity to secure a hockey scholarship, again, thieved, by Palin in her petty quest for fame & fortune.

Levi, had found himself, meaningful employment, against the odds of not having completed his high school requirements for a diploma, but, of course, slow news day, Palin, yapped him up on the official gov's site for Alaska. Doing so introduced questions as to how the kid obtained employment in his field, with excellent pay & benefits, without the required high school diploma/equivalency, required by law.

After these FACTs, Palin continues (Without consent) to through Levi to the tabloids to see her name on a People Magazine Cover, creating a frenzy every time Levi left his house ensuring he could not retain a regular kindof job without controversy & distraction of Palin stalkers.

In effort to rid herself of Levi, Palin, intimidated, Levi, over not seeing his son, when Bristol, hooked up with new boyfriends....which is why he has been focused on custody in place of GED or other pursuits.

A LIFE INTERRUPTED all due to the selfish, arrogance, of Palin.

NOTE: Levi, did refuse her bullying to volunteer, as a Special Olympics coach, of which, Palin, will not recognize out of jealously and spite.

In the Troopergate complaints, Palin says she was terrified and her sister was scared to death, of Wooten, who was in a rage, probably drunk, with a loaded gun.

How terrified was she of her ex brother in law, she says warranted HUNDREDS of Email's/phone calls/letters by her governors staff & husband?

"Wooten was headed home in a rage, McCann said. She called Palin and put the phone on speaker so Palin could listen when Wooten got there and get help if things got bad. Palin had her teenage son Track listen in, too. As McCann remembered it, Wooten said if their father got a lawyer for her “he would eat a f’ing lead bullet. I will shoot him.”

Palin drove over and watched through the window. She and McCann both said Wooten was all wound up. Palin said she did not call 911 because she had to leave for an importnat mayors meeting."

Her sister is in a life or death situation, Palin does nothing because she has to go be mayor?

Had Palin, back then, protected her sister and nephew by showing three minutes of concern, dailing 911, instead of worrying about her Political Agenda...the matter would have been brought to authorties attention without the months on end of harassment of Monegan...to do what Palin should have done months before.

Official Transcripts...READ FOR YOURSELVES WHAT KINDOF PETTY, ALL ABOUT ME, SELF INDULGENT, creep, Palin is. That is if you can read past all of Palin's...UMMMMMM's.

Wow, they are setting up a fund to keep-clean their self-tarnishing image? Last week we heard Texas' assertion that they were the biggest donor state and should succeed, only to find out that Alaska is the biggest recipient state. Looks like taxpayers, from the lower 48, will be backing this fund!

She never agreed to speak at the NRSC and the NRCC event. That is probably one of the reasons she needed to part ways with this group. She needs to have people around her who have her best interests in mind. She knows what she is doing and she has a grassroots following that is not matched by anyone in the GOP.

Separating from part of the national Republican scene is a good move for Governor Palin. There are many who do not have the governor's best interests at heart. Apparently this fund raising group is not abiding by the stipulations set down by the governor. She always does better when working with her own people. By the way, she did not give her consent to come to the RNC fundraiser. There was confusion by the SarahPac side. I think that was a major reason that this association fell apart.

Yep, she's a true republican alright. Bible thumping beggar who needs legal defense funds after her ego trip goes south in a hand basket. A true Reagan Nixon Bush Bushie. Never fear, the list of donors will include Limbaugh, Hannity, Ingram, Levin, Colter, Orielly, and Bernie Madoff pre prison vacation. I wonder if Ollie North will pony up to defend another failure of republican leadership. But Obama is a "bad man" for trying to throw out the trash left behind by those religious conservatives who ran us into bankruptcy with their misadventures and outright criminal conspiracies. Yep, she's just what we need to return us to the dark ages and yes you can see Russia from her house as long as you still think the Earth is flat!

President Pantywaist's recent world tour, cosying up to all the bad guys, excited the ambitions of America's enemies. Here, they realised, is a sucker they can really take to the cleaners. His only enemies are fellow Americans. Which prompts the question: why does President Pantywaist hate America so badly?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
What is it you hate about PEACE?

Bush ruined any righties chances for a good long while. This country is reeling from the last 8 years, no one even former GOP voters can afford to vote Republican any longer.
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I really hope you are right. I don't think Democrats should get lazy- in my opinion the Tea Parties could have a very unifying effect. The Rethugs are much better at holding together their coalitions than we are.

Sounds like you're a very bitter individual; politically. Let it go and you need to admit that your party has really screwed up our American System for their own personal greed. You may be in denial, but that's an issue you need to handle on your own.

We, as Americans, need to band together and put pressure on our legislators at all levels to produce legislation that benefit the people and not themselves. If legislators don't listen or produce, then it's time to retire them immediately. Until we Americans take this kind of action then we need to sit down and shut up!

Nobody can fix the palin convoy. It is so warped and twisted it is a wonder it is still around. I suspect she will hang around as long as dan quayle, the original fool before he was dethroned by gw.
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I don't remember Quayle hanging around- and even though he couldn't spell potato and he thought Murphy Brown was real- he didn't seem to be as big a joke as Palin.

Exacting revenge for unpopular policies is the norm in the third world, heretofore more likely in Barack Obama's ancestral Kenya than in America, more in the tradition of gangland Chicago than in Washington, where we count on cooler heads to prevail when raw emotion threatens to overwhelm sobriety and the undisciplined senses. We recall perceived national mistakes with the sadness of regret and even gratitude for lessons learned, not the frenzied catharsis of a St. Valentine's Day Massacre. Mr. Obama, having won the White House fair and square, is entitled to change any presidential policy he chooses, but the vindication of a national election does not entitle any president to exact mindless revenge.

The president hadn't counted on the rage of the jackals on the leftmost fringe of his party, organizations like MoveOn.org, which want only the "unity" of the lynch mob. They demand a hanging and the president promises only to think about it. Ever confident that his golden tongue, with or without the teleprompter, would mesmerize all foes and vanquish all rancor, Mr. Obama then threw George W. Bush's lawyers to the mob.

Rep. Nancy Pelosi, for one, was a member of the House intelligence committee and sat in on super-secret briefings after Sept. 11. She concedes that she heard about waterboarding but she doesn't remember exactly what she heard. Just like Barack Obama sleeping through 20 years of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright's rabid sermons, Ms. Pelosi dozed through the briefings. Her colleagues on the intelligence panel say they remember her demanding that the CIA do more to get the "intelligence" to prevent another attack.

President Pantywaist's recent world tour, cosying up to all the bad guys, excited the ambitions of America's enemies. Here, they realised, is a sucker they can really take to the cleaners. His only enemies are fellow Americans. Which prompts the question: why does President Pantywaist hate America so badly?

If al-Qaeda, the Taliban and the rest of the Looney Tunes brigade want to kick America to death, they had better move in quickly and grab a piece of the action before Barack Obama finishes the job himself. Never in the history of the United States has a president worked so actively against the interests of his own people - not even Jimmy Carter.

Obama's problem is that he does not know who the enemy is. To him, the enemy does not squat in caves in Waziristan, clutching automatic weapons and reciting the more militant verses from the Koran: instead, it sits around at tea parties in Kentucky quoting from the US Constitution. Obama is not at war with terrorists, but with his Republican fellow citizens. He has never abandoned the campaign trail.

If she's so focused on Alaska and Alaskans as Meghan Stapleton said, why does she need a PAC run by that Susan B Anthony group?

The name of her legal defense fund is very misleading - Alaska Fund Trust. This isn't for the benefit of Alaska. This is for the benefit of Sarah Palin so she doesn't have to come up with her own money for legal fees.

How about a Palin/Octomom ticket in 2012?
Just imagine the possibilities. Octomom can tell Sticky Fingers Sarah a thing or two about "fundraising." California and Alaska would be sewn up for the evangelical right-to-lifers in one fell swoop.

I am ROTF-LMAO! It's everyone's fault but her own. What happened to Repukelican "responsibility." The woman *may* be intelligent, but the idiotic things she said during the campaign made her the caricature that she is. The whole "Putin pops his head up in Alaskan airspace"; wow, that's insightful. And Bush did a flyover of NOLA! Dragging out poor Levi during the campaign, then tossing him overboard afterward?

One thing we can agree on; I sincerely hope that Palin is the nominee in 2012. Hell, Obama wouldn't even have to run a campaign to get re-elected!

Anonymous bloggers make Palin look stupid? C'mon, she's done that all by herself. She said she had foreign policy experience because Alaska is near Russia and borders Canada. So how many governors whose states border Canada and Mexico can claim that experience? She says she reads all the papers, but can't name one. She can't name another SC case other than Roe, even the one that cut $millions from Alaska last summer in the Exxon Valdez appeal. She's really on top about what's going on in her state. Please let her be the repub candidate in 2012.

Oh yeah? Well, it's anonymous bloggers who have unfairly made her look stupid, when she is actually very bright. Anonymous bloggers who don't even put their names on the awful gossip they spread about her, the viscious lies. Anonymous bloggers, McCain's staff, the media, the left, Levi, that horrible television reporter woman -- it seems like just about everyone is out to get her. But this is just gotcha journalism, gotcha politics. Sarah will be back on top and will lead the GOP to victory in 2012.

Sarah is a very polarizing figure. You either love her or you hate her. She was pushed to national attention with her family during one massive media frenzy. She lost and has returned to Alaska to be governor, but the media still swarms like a bunch of piranha around the Palins. The woman ran for just Vice-President, not sainthood. Responsible journalism has been replaced by sensationalism. In that light, I do not care whether Brittney Spears wore underwear last night or what Levi Johnston kept in his jeans or not!

"This is meaningless. She is giving herself plenty of time to learn the process. In politics, three years is a LOOOOONG time."

Yes and no. While McCain certainly proved that you can fall & rise in a very short time (everyone considered him 'out' when he ran out of money early), Gov Palin is a less known commodity. While she will try to fall back on the evangelical base, they will have several candidates from which to choose. And, recall its not really three years, but under two. For the GOP the fundraising and team building has already begun and will ramp up big time following the 2010 election.

This shows how the whole nation is going to pot. Only Sarah Palin can save us, if she is elected as the GOP presidential candidate in 2012. Unfortunatley, everything you are hearing out of Alsaska, including this unruly Levi kid are just LIES, LIES and more LIES. Sarah will be the first God-fearing Christian president this nation has had in a long long time.

We need to start dealing with all of these pressing issues like the economy, and also begin to remember old promises we made long ago. For example, global poverty, which we pledged in 2000 to help eradicate by supporting the United Nations Millennium Development Goals. The Borgen Project (www.borgenproject.org) has some interesting insight into addressing the issues of global poverty, something we can remedy easily and sustainably.

Some interesting figures to ponder:
$30 billion USD: The annual shortfall to end global poverty.
$550 billion USD: The annual US defense budget.

Palin's costly ethical arrogance and divisiveness aren't going over well on a national scene - it's been one disaster after another in Alaska, too, and so, also, much. The only way she can slip under the radar and stay there is to create more divisiveness and chaos.

The fact that the Governor cannot even manage a fund raising operations for an exploratory campaign just says it all. The biggest mistake of the many by McCain was selecting someone in no way qualified for the office of President. She is all drama all the time when the nation wants no drama Obama in the White House. The GOP will do itself a huge favor by cutting her loose before she does any more damage.

I notice the Fix hasn't tagged this post as one of the series about 'The Rising' - upcoming GOPers. Perhaps it is the first in a companion series? Shall we make helpful suggestions for an appropriate series title?

It'll be interesting to see how she spins this. Over the last year nothing has been her fault. Palin loves to blame democrats, media, McCain staffers, family members, etc...everyone but herself. A leader who doesn't take responsibility isn't a real leader at all.

what? no cynicism? No "she's only doing this to keep attention? Oh right, Indiana isn't considered a swing state, so her going there to speak to the anti abortion people had nothing to do with her political aspirations for 2012. So you are only cynical about the Prez? How about a report on the political future of Chip Saltzman? What's he up to? Since you've know him a long time, you could fill us in.

This is reply to the person that said media was to blame for interview of levi.
Sarah Palin put herself out there,touting all kinds of things. She brought those kids into the limelight and used them for political gain. It was ok for Bristol Palin to come on tv though right? I think greta Van Sustern sunk to a new low by trying to paint a whole opposite view of the Palins.
Yes the media is a lot to blame for the reporting they do,But this kid has just as much right to tell his story as anyone else does,I could care less if he works or is a teenage father. He is still that baby's father and has rights to.one of theses days people will come to their senses and see Sarah Palin for what she really is.She's a user!!! she uses people to get sympathy,money,fame.and a whole host of other things.She has taken people for granted and it will catch up to her.I'm glad these people pulled out,they are realizing the same about her.

Hey, jacksplat, I think he's got plenty of insight into the Palins. Nice folks there, not letting a father have any contact with his baby except at their house under their guard. Is that what they mean by "family values?"